Car tracking board
This project was one of my first custom PCB designs. It aimed to build a modular car tracking with some remote control features. The design was split in separate boards for modularity and easy prototyping/debugging before being merged into a single board. All board were designed in KiCad, ordered online for the PCB manufacturing and finally, soldered at home.
This board features:
- Continuous vehicle tracking with low-power modes for efficiency when the engine is off (Sleep mode with wake triggers and LDOs to minimize energy consumption)
- CAN bus support for direct integration with the vehicle network (however never used nor even tested)
- Integrated sensors such as temperature proble, humidity, acceleration, etc.
- Relays to power external devices
- Illumination driver for WS2812 RGB lighting control
Modular Design Approach
Prototyping the PIC32MZ Board
The main processing board is based on Microchip’s PIC32MZ microcontroller. Each microcontroller’s GPIO pin is mapped to castellated holes for easy breakout. This board include common components such as:
- An EEPROM for persistent data storage
- Power supply filtering
- Pull-up resistors for interrupts and an I2C bus
This small module is the controller for this tracking system.
Wireless Network Module (3G)
To enable remote communication, the system integrates a SIM5360E 3G module.
- Supports UART communication with voltage translation (1.8V–5V).
- Features ESD protections
This makes the board capable of sending data in real time over mobile networks.
First Complete Board
The first assembled prototype combined the modules into a single functional system. N.B. The MCU and other components were positioned on the reverse side of the board, a practice I now prefer to avoid.